A History of Postcards *

Tracing the origins of the picture postcard is difficult because postcards were not simply invented—instead, they evolved. Their history is inevitably linked with the development of the postal service, but also features innovations in printing and photography, daring proposals…and even a 300-meter tower!

We try to chronicle the history of postcards through a timeline of relevant events, going back a few centuries to provide the context that culminated in postcards being officially issued and recognized by a postal operator on October 1st, 1869.

 

17th-19th centuries

Following the popularization of printing presses, visiting cards, bill heads, writing paper and other types of paper ephemera started to have illustrations on them, often with delicate engravings and tasteful designs.

Already in 1777, French engraver Demaison published in Paris a sheet of cards with greetings on them, meant to be cut and sent through the local post, but people were wary of servants reading their messages…so the idea was not very well received.

Carte de visite de Louis Huart

1840’s

A postal reform in the UK unified the cost of domestic mail delivery to one penny per envelope, to be prepaid by the sender. The proposals of Sir Rowland Hill also included that the pre-payment was to be made by issuing printed sheets of adhesive stamps. The Penny Black, the world’s first adhesive postage stamp, made its debut in May 1840.

Simultaneously, decorated prepaid letter sheets (similar to today’s aerograms) were also put on sale by the post office. These were designed by William Mulready and showed Britannia with a lion at her feet, sending mail messengers to all parts of the world. Though this particular design turned out to be unpopular and often ridiculed, this was the first postal stationery item issued by the post office that had decorations on the outside. They were replaced the following year by plain pink envelopes, with a printed one-penny stamp on the corner.

Hand-colored Mulready envelope

Already that year, Theodore Hook Esq., a British writer, mailed himself a caricature of post office workers shown to be writing mail in order to sell more stamps. Most likely mailed as a joke (and delivered against the post office regulations of the time,) this could probably be the earliest record of a postcard being sent through the mail.

A few years later, in 1843, Sir Henry Cole produced the first Christmas greeting card, a drawing of himself and his family. This was the year in which Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol was published.

 

1861

In late February, the US Congress passed an act that allowed privately printed cards, weighing one ounce or less, to be sent in the mail.

Later that year, John P. Charlton from Philadelphia patented a postal card and sold the rights to Hymen Lipman (founder of the first envelope company in the US and inventor of the lead pencil and eraser.) However, with the start of the Civil War a month later, these Lipman Cards, as they became known, were forgotten and not used until almost a decade later.

1865

At the Karlsruhe postal conference, Heinrich von Stephan proposed the creation of offenes Postblatt (or, open post-sheets.)

“The goal was to simplify the etiquette of the letter format, but also to reduce the work, paper and costs involved in the sending of a short message.”

He suggested the introduction of a rigid card, roughly the size of an envelope, which could be written on and mailed without the need for an envelope, having the postage pre-printed.

The idea was not so well received in Germany: The post office feared the complexity and cost of implementing the scheme in all the different states, each issuing their own stamps.

Heinrich von Stephan

October 1st, 1869

In Austria-Hungary, Dr. Emanuel Herrmann (a professor of economics from Vienna) wrote an article in the Neue Freie Presse pointing out that the time and effort involved in writing a letter was out of proportion to the size of the message sent. He suggested that a more practical and cheaper method should be implemented for shorter, more efficient communications.

 His recommendations impressed the Austrian Post, who put them into practice on October 1st 1869, resulting in the Correspondenz-Karte, a light-brown 8.5x12cm rectangle with space for the address on the front, and room for a short message on the back. The postcard featured an imprinted two-Kreuzer stamp on top right corner, costing half the price of a normal letter.

The postcard was born!